Words and pictures from the human students at the Umeå Institute of Design

A quite comprehensive article on texting as an interface mixed with A.I.
If you have any experiences with the Lark App it is one example. They are not neccesarily new but are now re-visited tied into greater/physical services and perhaps there are moments where we need an artificial friend more than another app?

Here at the Interaction Design program at the Umeå Institute of Design we value sketching as a tool for developing and communicating designs. We teach how to sketch in all sorts of forms and materials and it sometimes may seem we emphasize sketching and prototyping in hardware and code. However, any ideas around sketching are deeply rooted in its original form of drawings and visuals (I have posted on such sketching before).

Another great resource to expand your sketching skills and understanding is the latest book by Koos Eissen and Roselien Steur of sketching.nl : Sketching product design Presentation.

The book spans an introduction to our innate responses to visual stimuli, basics of gestalt theory, to a conclusion on visual rhetoric, using lots of examples and showcases from various design practices.

(full disclosure: Koos was my sketching/drawing teacher at Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft, and so was Roselien)

Google is in the process of establishing an open innovation and research program around the IoT. They plan to bring together a community of academics, Google experts and potentially other parties to pursue an open and shared mission.

“As a first step, we are announcing an open call for research proposals for the Open Web of Things:

Researchers interested in the Expedition Lead Grant should build a team of PIs and put forward a proposal outlining a draft research roadmap both for their team(s), as well as how they propose to integrate related research that is implemented outside their labs (e.g., Individual Project Grants).
For the Individual Project Grants we are seeking research proposals relating to the IoT in the following areas (1) user interface and application development, (2) privacy & security, and (3) systems & protocols research.”

Rainer Wehinger’s music transcription from the 70’s provides (if not complete notation) an interesting exercise in visualizing sound. If you are into this type of thing you should definitely check it out.

“Rainer Wehinger created the visuals above after the fact as an “aural score,” intending visuals to present a visible “reading” of the sounds of the piece. That makes the score itself closer to the digital visualizations we see as motion graphics works all over the Web (and on our sister site Create Digital Motion). The point isn’t to create a set of instructions by which you can perform a piece, but a visual counterpart that allows you to (presumably) hear it differently.”

Audi has been testing an interesting concept around car sharing in Stockholm. Their experiences in prototyping suggests that it might not be that much of a problem to share and do it without huge stickers on the side of the car. Anyone in Stockholm with more input?

“Three or four friends or coworkers all use the same car as a group, aided by an app and technology that automatically recognizes who’s driving.
The program, run by Audi, lets the group choose any car to share for a year or two. Drivers can reserve the car or check the gas tank from their phone. When someone gets in the car, the system reads a beacon on his or her keychain to track the drive and split the monthly bill accordingly.”

A neat lighting concept, and seemingly well executed considering how difficult it is to model nature or natural phenomena in a convincing way. It’s almost a consumer version of Olafur Eliasson’s The Weather Project or maybe a version of f.lux for the physical world.

The designer (Kelton Ray Minor) claims his inspiration came for studying in CPH during the long & dark winter. Reason enough for UID to get one for every studio!

What started as a near million dollar Kickstarter, was transformed into one of the most disastrous product launches of all time. Not only did Logbar release a terribly unattractive and poorly designed piece of hardware, but the software puts a nail in the coffin. For the outrageous $269 price tag, Logbar won’t be around long. (excerpt from Youtube)